


Revenge is Standing Still

by notaverse



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaverse/pseuds/notaverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina can remember when things used to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenge is Standing Still

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Revenge is Standing Still  
>  **Fandom:** Once Upon a Time  
>  **Character:** Regina  
>  **Rating:** G  
>  **Disclaimer:** Not mine, damnit.  
>  **A/N:** Vignette written for h/c bingo's 'trapped between realities' square.

Most people think of themselves as belonging to a single reality, no matter how much they would wish otherwise. But Regina Mills isn't most people. She remembers what it's like to have the power to change - and nothing in this town will change, ever again, unless she permits it.

Storybrooke is a town trapped in time, never aging, never growing. For the residents, there's nothing beyond the boundaries. No one ever leaves. When they think of the outside world, it's in a vague, indefinite way, as though trying to construct a single clear image from multiple conflicting descriptions. It's not a real place, as far as they're concerned, and they've never been there.

Neither has Regina, but she, at least, has that option.

Except that she doesn't, not really. Storybrooke is a town of her imagining: every building generated by her thoughts, the occupations and even the names of the townspeople decided by her alone. She's the one who turned a cricket back into a man and gave him a profession where he could talk at people all he wanted; she's the one who created a school so that all children, regardless of their station in life, could receive an education. This is _her_ town and she knows every square inch of it by heart.

And these are her people - former dwellers of the Enchanted Forest, now living in the state of Maine, and with no better an idea of what it means to be an American citizen than Snow White has of how to keep a secret. Regina can't leave them alone.

Sometimes it feels like this is her punishment. Every single day life begins anew. No babies are ever born, no child ever moves up a grade in school. No adult ever retires, and no happy couple ever celebrates their anniversary. There's no happy ever after here, because the concepts of _before_ and _after_ do not exist - there's only _now_ , and _now_ stretches out to infinity.

_Now_ is everything she's imagined for everyone else, yet nothing she wants for herself. She has money, she has status, she has the purely mortal power that comes from being the mayor. She's traded her dark castle for a bright new house and she need not take hearts to have her will done. Storybrooke's Mayor Mills could want for nothing more.

But for Regina, her position as queen the only good thing to come from her forced marriage, her power hard-earned through fear, anger and pain - for Regina, it is lacking. These people have no more love for her than they did in the Enchanted Forest, though they obey her readily enough. This world without magic will not return Daniel to life, nor does it offer her any prospect of a fresh start. Where there are no newcomers there can be no new relationships, friendships or otherwise. She's as trapped in this life as the people she's brought with her, with no hope of moving forward, and unlike all of them, she has the baggage of another world to contend with. 

She's reminded of that every morning when Snow White, now a meek, demure schoolteacher who would never dream of attacking carriages in the forest, runs into her in the street. Mary-Margaret has neither sword nor bow and arrow - nor does she have that which she loves most, her husband, who lies comatose and anonymous in the hospital. 

Perhaps Regina was wrong to enact the curse. Perhaps she can't have it all. But now neither can Snow White, which means that no matter how trapped Regina might feel in Storybrooke, she can take consolation in knowing that for her mortal enemy, there's no such thing as a happy ending.


End file.
